I met them in Bakersfield, I was treated like a family member,Pat and I sat in the trailer door with her dogs on our laps. Don tellin' stories,a real nice couple.REAL PEOPLE !.... R.I.P.
I remember going to Union Grove, Wisconsin and watching him race a few times when I was a young teenage kid back around '79. Watching Don and his crew tear down the car and get it ready for the next round. He was too busy to ask for an autograph. It was cool seeing that Hemi torn down and put back together in less than a half hour! Amazing! [They were busier than a one-legged man in an @ss kicking contest.]
And I vaguely remember on the side door of Don's car trailer (not the back door that opens to load/unload the car), there was written Don and Shirley underlined. And under each name was a tally for who had won the race each time Don and Shirley had to run each other that season. (I can't remember who was winning at the time.)
Then we would go see Shirley's pits. Dad was really impressed how beautiful she was in person. We would watch her and her crew for a while also. She had the same tally on her trailer door that Don did. I think it was a friendly thing between them. [Her crew was busier than a one-armed wall-paper hanger].
Then there was a Mopar Nationals many years later (like '84/'85 I believe in INDY). He was a guest speaker and talked about the events leading up to breaking the 220 MPH quarter mile. Very interesting story. I enjoyed listening to Don's stories.
When my oldest son was around 5 years old, we had bought the video tape of the Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum. He loved to watch that video, he literally saw it at least 50 times.... maybe 100... He loved Don and Don was his hero. My son would say that when he turned 16 that he was going to build the next generation Swamp Rat. When I would ask him, "What about hanging around with your friends?" He would answer, "I'm not gonna have time for friends, I'm gonna be too busy building my Swamp Rat...." (cute - out of a 5 year old! Ha, ha)
So a year or two later we were at Mopar Nationals in Columbus (I wanna say late 90's). Don had recently retired from racing and was doing some reporting for ESPN2. We heard that Don was at Mopar Nats filming some reports, so we tried to catch up with him. We would ask people if they saw Don and where he was. No luck. The closest we got was 1/2 hour behind Don.... My son was a little disappointed, but we still had a good time at the Nats.
When we drove to Florida for vacation a couple of years ago we wanted to stop in and see if we could catch him at the museum. We stopped to have lunch with Waggs on the way in, planning to stop on the way back. Then were in too big of a hurry to stop on our way home. (but it was great to meet and have a burger with Waggs. His Waggin is cool! And he was very close to the exit for Don Garlits museum.) We keep saying, "Next time..."
Because next time I get down there, I'm gonna do my best to finally go to the museum, look around and hopefully my son and I can catch Don there so he can finally say hi and shake the hand of one of his childhood heroes.
